


E is for Escape

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:06:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1305880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maya finally realises it is time to stop escaping and start facing up to things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	E is for Escape

Maya had always seen her joints as a way of escape in the past, escape from the feeling that she was never going to fit in, a way of switching off when her family or pressures of school and relationships got too much for her. How could she have known at the time just what situations her usage of joints would put her into, and just what else she would have to escape from?

 

Maya knew that she had sounded distant on the phone to Emily, and she felt guilty about it. But there was a part of her that almost welcomed being away from Rosewood, much as she hated it at True North. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, the distance from Emily wasn’t a bad thing at the moment.

Maya had sat through that awkward dinner watching the look on Pam’s face, knowing that she was forming completely the wrong picture of Maya’s family from what she was saying. Okay, so her parents hadn’t got married until after Maya was born. Pam obviously interpreted that as meaning that the St Germains were a liberal family. And the look on her face when Maya had stupidly mentioned the tattoo her mother had gotten. Maya had sat there thinking “I could tell you things that would make you realise that actually, you and my parents are kindred spirits.” She could have told them how her mother didn’t speak to her for two weeks after seeing her kissing her first girlfriend, Lindsay. And the incident with the joint hadn’t been the first time, either.

She’d been furious both with Pam – oh, sorry, “Mrs Fields” – and with her parents, and initially furious with herself for being so stupid as to leave the backpack with the joint where Emily’s mother could have found it. If Emily’s mother had found the joint on Hanna, or one of the others, would she have reacted in quite the same way, or was it just because it was Maya, and even then because she was Emily’s girlfriend?

Lyndon provided a welcome distraction for her at least in the first few weeks, a way that Maya could escape from thoughts of Rosewood, of her family, of Emily. But eventually, she realised that she was hiding behind whatever the hell she had going on with Lyndon just to escape from her feelings for Emily. And when she finally got out of True North, she was going to use the opportunity to try and make things right with Emily again. And Lyndon? She was starting to notice something off about him, something that freaked her out, something about the way he’d look at her sometimes, the way he’d talk about never wanting to lose her. The person she had used as her escape route was now the person she was determined to escape from.

 

It didn’t take Maya long to realise that she would never truly leave Lyndon behind. She’d hoped that maybe if he saw that she was happy now, with Emily, maybe he would back off, but obviously not. 

That whole meal with Pam, Maya had itched to just get out a joint and light up, help her relax and escape the tension she felt sitting opposite the woman she still held responsible for her being sent to True North. If Pam hadn’t gone to her parents with the joint, then they would never have sent Maya away and wouldn’t have found herself in the situation with Lyndon in the first place. And she wouldn’t have felt like she had to explain herself to Emily. Why should she? Was there really any difference between Maya and Lyndon, and Emily and Paige McCullers?

She sat there at Emily’s swim team party, watching Emily with her teammates, and wanted to turn round and run out of there. Maya didn’t belong there, and she knew it. And that Paige McCullers bitch knew it too. Emily hadn’t noticed, but Paige had been giving her death looks the entire time, which hadn’t exactly encouraged Maya to go over and join the group. If Emily had just stepped away from her friends and spent some actual time with Maya that night, maybe nothing would have happened. She wouldn’t have felt so pissed off that she felt the need to escape from the situation by getting her joints out again. 

Even as Maya had asked Emily to go to San Francisco with her, she knew deep down that Emily wouldn’t go. Emily had her life in Rosewood, with her friends, her swim team, and her family would be coming back. She had things keeping her there, whereas all Maya had was things that she wanted to escape from.

Lyndon wouldn’t be able to track her down to San Francisco. Maya didn’t even think she’d ever told him that she had some friends there, but even if he had known that much, San Francisco was a big enough city that she could get lost in the crowd and he wouldn’t find her. It would be a chance to escape from him, and from her family, once and for all.

But at the same time, there was a part of her that didn’t want to leave Rosewood, and specifically Emily, behind. She needed time to get her head together, to throw Lyndon off her scent. But once that was done, Maya was done with escaping. She couldn’t run any more. It was time to face up to her fears, to start living her life. And as soon as she was free of Lyndon, that was what she’d do. So she wouldn’t go to California after all. She’d sort things out in her head, then she’d get on with her life, start living properly instead of running all the time. And she would start her new life with Emily.


End file.
